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waterlogged

Long story short, I can only use other peoples computers atm because my current computer(and the spare/testing server) both got drenched(as in ceiling falls in with water) last night.

Good job I made a windows survival kit so I can still use the computers elsewhere without any significant problems(although I really miss linux already), but with any luck I'll be able get back online once I get a new monitor and everything dries out.

We're getting over 'the winter of the century' here in Toronto... we have gotten blasted with around 40cm on three seperate occasions last month, about a week-to-week-&-one-half apart... Snow was EVERYWHERE, -stacked in parkinglots, lawns, sides of roads... A 'sideroad' here (incorrect nomenclature as it's a fairly heavily traveled road) had been reduced to ONE LANE as the snow removal cannot keep up, so it has been piled to one side, effectively burying some people's cars with snow 3X higher than the roof of the cars themselves!
People were parking their cars IN the road at night... there was NO other place to park! So to get around after 7 or 8-PM, we were driving around cars that were 'stalled' in-place!

The snow mountains are nearly all gone now, -getting 10~C these past few days, but very windy (read "cold"! what with Lake Ontario within view).. -Flushing the mud & pollution of the winter down the Humber R.!

We here could easily have snow on the roof of this delapidated building that could at any time leak down and drench my computer... fortunately though, we've not had any roof problems here on this end of the building.

Where I lived in NY state five years ago, did. And, being winter melt-off, there was nothing that could be done to fix it 'until Springtime' when it would be warm enough to have the Maint. people get up there and fix it. I had two 50-gallon trash cans set-up to catch water that dripped rather heavily into my spare bedroom, and five or six 5-gallon pails set around the livingroom & kitchen and had to set my alarm clock at night to 2-hour intervals to get up and dump those stupid things in the bathrub before the overflowed! I hated that place that Spring!

Once the roof was fixed, -it was fine though.. (Although roofer 'fell through' the roof to his waist when inspecting it, -he left a massive gaping hole over my bathroom sink for a few hours while he went back into twon to get sheets of galvanized tin to re-do the section...)..
I can home to the smell of wet insulation & tar-odors... and discovered wood splinters, tar paper & wet 'crap' all over my bathroom sink and floor... and what appear to be show-prints on the edge of the sink! (Yup, -roofer got a foothold on my sink to climb back up through the hole he had fallen through....)

well, good news, monitor just needed drying out, and computer works, although I now have small problems with keyboard and mouse(which is why I'm using a slightly less broken, but "space bar doesn't always work" keyboard,still better than nothing),mouse likes to move left slowly, all the time,and keyboard randomly presses keys every 5 or 6 secs.Still,no other problems(and although monitor was making funny noises when I first unplugged everything it still works, I was expecting it to not even turn on :P), unless your counting waiting for a complete HD check on both drives since power was cut unexpectedly(cost or keyboard+mouse< cost of monitor or new computer, so my happy).

either way, sorry if I miss a space somewhere, to be expected with this keyboard.

I used this stuff about a year ago to clean a notebook keyboard that had a bit of soft drink spilled on it, making a few of the keys sticky. I unplugged it and removed the battery, sprayed some of the cleaner between the stuck keys, and let it dry for a few hours. After that there was no more problem with sticky keys.

"Please give us a simple answer, so that we don't have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don't fit the way we want the world to be."
~ Terry Pratchett in Nation

My cousin in Detroit professionally cleans computers (keyboards, monitors, VDTs, etc) for area businesses, and we use a cleaning liquid that is partially rubbing alcohol. It evaporates quickly, so it is 'semi-dry' and 'drying' at the same time.
He upgraded to a 'liquid immersion tank' for cleaning the keyboards... it's a shallow vessel with this non-flammable liquid (some form of ether maybe, -similar to dry-cleaing fluid??) that you 'dunk the keyboard' in and upon lifting it out and pouring out liquid, the keyboard is DRY, and ready to be 'buffed' with a handbroom of soft fibres and lint-free/low-lint terry towels. CLEAN!

I looked at that 'canned air' product and while I HAVE used this before to quick-liberate doughnut dust and crumbs etc. from my keyboard here at home (quite effectively so), my cousin says & insists that these are BAD products because they impart positively-charged ions into the appliance... While it effectively blows-out the particulates, it is making the appliance 'attractive' to dust and imparts a mild positive electrical polarity (which 'attracts').
-Basically, -it's like using "EndDust" on your TV screen: -cleans it really good that time but leaves a 'greasy residue' that wicks more dust later, faster.

He recommends a over-the-shoulder vacuum that can both suck or blow air... "DataVac" makes such a high-power vacuum, that's the one that we use.

I keep saying 'we'... I trained with him and build my own computer-cleaning kit to his specifications before I moved to Toronto five years ago. I just lack the gift of gab to get my foot in the front door to clean someone's computer ("sales"! -I HATE doing "sales"!), so I would vacation with him in Detroit where he would have the jobs pre-arranged and we'd go on-the-road together, cleaning computers for mad-money.

I used this stuff about a year ago to clean a notebook keyboard that had a bit of soft drink spilled on it, making a few of the keys sticky. I unplugged it and removed the battery, sprayed some of the cleaner between the stuck keys, and let it dry for a few hours. After that there was no more problem with sticky keys.

Oh, by the way, this stuff is excellent for cleaning your vinyl records, too, which is why I had it on hand in the first place.

"Please give us a simple answer, so that we don't have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don't fit the way we want the world to be."
~ Terry Pratchett in Nation

ok, just tested my keyboard and mouse after leaving them near a radiator in the hopes of getting rid of any residue water. mouse is now fine, but the keyboard is still sending random key with no reasoning(often nothing to do with what I'm typing, for example, my username is nicely located on the far left, however the keyboard still sent "m" as a key pressed). Gonna have to buy a new one tomorrow(spare works, but this space bar is annoying -- problem with the little plastic button below key, thing is on a weird angle, so unless I push space down from the left hand side it doesn't pick it up. I tend to press edge closest to hand doing least between words, so I have to keep going back and forth fixing the spaces :P)